Mr Tony Burke (Watson, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations) Share this | Hansard source

No, we all were, and I think I've been including everybody in the way that I've dealt with this in this speech. I think I've been dealing with everybody in the way that I've turned this speech, and I've done it very deliberately.

So I make no criticism of the Leader of the Opposition for bringing this resolution forward—no criticism whatsoever. But I do want to make the point very clearly—I guess two points. One is that no government ever, in a circumstance where something like this is moved, would be in a position to vote for it. That's never happened. It won't happen. Secondly, while we'll vote in different ways on the voices, I don't know whether a division will be called, but, if a division is called, no-one who uses these symbols should see a division about procedure on the floor of this parliament as giving them the solace of thinking that they have supporters. Nobody should think, because we divide on the procedure, that somehow that creates a divide on the repugnancy of Nazism and the symbols that go with it. So for those reasons the government will not be supporting the suspension motion that's before the House.

See this speech in context